Use of the nuetral possessive 'their'

What to do with possessives when group is both genders or unknown and subject is third person: we can use the neutral possessive. Students in our Skype English lessons have great problems with this. Read on:

The neutral possessive used in third person for people is 'their'. So if we have a group of people composed of both sexes we should use 'their'. Consider: 'each student/everyone should hand in their homework on time'. Unless we know that the people involved is one gender, we should assume that there are 2 genders and thus utilise 'their'. If we know that the group has one sex only then we could employ 'his' or 'her' depending on the gender of the group. An alternative to 'their' often employed is 'his or her'. E.g. each student should hand in his or her homework. Have a good day/night. www.clasesinglesonline.com